Lawmakers held hearings last week on the state of Mt. Edgecumbe High School, a boarding school in Sitka for students from rural Alaska that is run directly by the state Department of Education.

In recent months, concerns about student health and safety, dorm life and facilities have surfaced in public meetings. The boarding school, which usually enrolls around 400 secondary students, has seen around 100 students withdraw, an exodus of about a quarter of its enrollment.

Now legislators say they need to get to the bottom of what’s happening at the storied institution that largely serves Alaska Native youths from some of the smallest and most remote communities in Alaska.

There is no local school board in control of Mt. Edgecumbe, only the state, Rep. Rebecca Himschoot, a Sitka Democrat, said at a House Education Committee hearing on Feb. 11.

“We are directly responsible for the safety, quality of life and well-being of the students,” she said.

Mt. Edgecumbe opened in 1947 as a federal Bureau Indian of Affairs boarding school, with the state taking over ownership and operations in the 1980s.

The students, who come to the school from an array of more than 100 villages around the state, are also more vulnerable because they not only study but live at Mt. Edgecumbe — often hundreds of miles and multiple plane rides from home.

“The other factor that raises the stakes in our conversation today exponentially is that unlike other school districts, the students at Mt. Edgecumbe do not go home to family caregivers at night,” Himschoot said. “The responsibility of acting as family for the students at the school is weighty and cannot be overemphasized.”

The issues at Edgecumbe have been “bubbling up” in recent months, with student disenrollment numbers getting “alarmingly large” and threatening to worsen if students go back to their home villages having had bad experiences, Sen. Bert Stedman, a Sitka Republican, said at a Senate majority press availability on Feb. 10.

The viability of the school is a crucial issue for Alaska, Stedman said. “Edgecumbe produces some of the top leaders in the state, at the local level up to our biggest corporations.”

Lawmakers from the Senate Finance Committee who visited the campus in Sitka on Feb. 6 reported rat infestations, leaky roofs and complaints about contaminated water.

“The quality of the facilities was, I think, deplorable,” said Sen. Lyman Hoffman, a Bethel Democrat who went on the trip.

Hoffman said students had reported a rat frequenting the gym facility so often they gave the creature a nickname: Twinkletoes.

The Legislature has repeatedly voted for projects to upgrade Mt. Edgecumbe facilities, but the funding has been vetoed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, said Sen. Löki Tobin, an Anchorage Democrat.

Dunleavy’s office did not immediately respond to a question about vetoes for Edgecumbe funding.

In the House Education Committee hearing on Feb. 11, Alaska Education Commissioner Deena Bishop and Mt. Edgecumbe Superintendent David Langford traced the school’s recent history to the pandemic. The school expanded staff using $5 million in COVID-19 funding and then faced a budget shortfall of more than $1.6 million for the 2025 fiscal year when that pandemic-era money ran out, they said.

In 2025, a series of rapid changes unfolded, according to Bishop: Facing a budget shortfall, the school proposed a plan that would have cut the teaching staff by half. The superintendent resigned.

Langford — who is also the superintendent of the Chatham School District, which includes schools in Gustavus, Angoon and Klukwan — was hired to head Edgecumbe. Around the same time, a key longtime staff member overseeing dorm life and activities departed, as did several other residential-life employees.

Major problems with school facilities came to light, Bishop said.

A Department of Education presentation referenced during the hearing showed apparent mold, duct tape and disrepair in the school’s food facility, along with worn furniture and leaks. A U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection garnered 59 violations, the presentation said.

“When I got there on July 1, I really doubted we could open the school,” Langford told the lawmakers. “The cafeteria was in such bad shape.”

A new cafeteria and dorm contractor has fixed some of the issues, Langford said. Other projects to shore up leaky roofs, bathrooms and windows are planned or in progress.

Heading into the 2025-2026 school year, students were already withdrawing.

In December 2026, school alumni, parents and staff members raised concerns about student mental health and safety, Sitka radio station KCAW reported at the time. One mental health provider said eight students had been hospitalized for suicidal ideation between Nov. 12 and Nov. 28.

Junior Ilana Kalke, from the community of Koyuk, population about 300, about 130 miles from Nome, told the legislators that leaky roofs, broken washing machines and other maintenance issues hurt the student experience at Mt. Edgecumbe. So did inconsistent application of dorm rules, she said.

Still, she said, “I still do feel that Edgecumbe is a place where we can get a higher education. That’s why I came to Mt. Edgecumbe.”